A Romanian girl in London

The Next Big Thing Blogging Award

The nice guy writing at The Living Notebook (by the way, what’s your name, Mr. Nice Guy?) nominated me for The Next Big Thing blog award. I mean, meee! Despite the language mistakes I make when writing in English, my second language, he reads my blog and enjoys it. I am beyond flattered by this nomination, especially because he nominated me among other lovely, smart ladies, owners of very interesting blogs, some of them published writers and all of them, native English speakers. Now do you get my enthusiasm?

This nomination implies that I have to nominate five blogs that I believe they could be the next best thing and I also have to answer some questions about my work in progress.

Here are my nominations:

The Jiggly Bits. Like she says, life it’s funny. She speaks about random life events in a hilarious manner and she makes the funniest connections. I would have never thought of comparing looking for my keys with looking for my G-spot, for example. I love this lady.

Doggy’s Style. Hold your horses, there is nothing kinky here. Just a guy that owns a dog and a great sense of humor. You should read him too.

In The Interest of Living. Shane is Torontonian and he was my writing buddy during NaNoWriMo contest. He writes beautiful poems and he completed a novel in 30 days. He is very smart and he seems nice too. What a combo, right?

Starstone. A Sweedish young writer that blogs about her horses. Blogging about horses is not something that a lot of people do. That is why I like it.

Kirby’s dog blog. This blogger likes writing and dogs and you can tell if you visit the website. If I ever get a dog, it will look like Kirby.

1) What is the working title of your novel?

The Confessions of A Weirdo

2) Where did the idea for the novel come from?

I have started writing this novel novel last year but the story kept changing against my will, of course. After my first session with a shrink I have started writing a sort of memoir. Putting down on paper and confronting myself with events that I kept repressing my entire life was supposed to have a healing effect. I couldn’t do this for long, though, as I have hard times drawing a line between reality and fantasy so it was a matter of weeks until my memoir started sneaking into my novel or the other way round, I am not sure.

3) What genre does your novel fall under?

Mainstream Fiction

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Natalie Portman

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your novel?

A girl tries to fit in, while learning to accept herself and looking for a place to belong, all these actions leading to inner conflicts that will make her appear as a weirdo to the world.

6) Will your novel be self-published or represented by an agency?

Probably self-published but I do hope for an agency.

7) How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I have started writing the first draft last year. Since then I have been writing and deleting and writing and deleting the first draft many times. Then, when NaNoWriMo started, I decided to write the first draft beginning to end in one month, without deleting anything. It was an interesting process, spitting out a story like that. I liked it. It is a very bad first draft but it is a first draft, after all. I really needed this story out of my system. I will start working on the second draft next month.

8) What other novels would you compare this book to within your genre?

I don’t know. Maybe any memoir.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this novel?

The crazy journey of my life, my own inner conflicts, all the people I have met that felt misplaced in this world, our struggle to remain ourselves while we are constantly persuaded to be in so many ways, without being asked if this is ok with us.

10) What else about your novel might pique the reader’s interest?

This could be the story of any of you.

Another project is My Romanian Diary on this blog. It started as a writing exercise. I wanted to write more often, on various topics. I was surprised to see I have quite an audience in the USA and Canada so I decided to turn my writing exercise into a humble attempt to put Romania on the map, for them. Romania has a bad reputation, I am aware of it. I don’t like living in Romania and I am planning to immigrate, but at the same time I know Romania is more than Gypsies, poverty and bad politics. There are young people like me in Romania, that are smart and educated and try to make an honest living in the middle of all the craziness unfolding here, young people that would like things to be different, but have no power to make changes so they choose to leave. I know my attempt doesn’t make any difference but if one foreigner will have at least one positive thought about Romania after reading my blog, then my job is done.

Lavinia,
First thanks for thinking on me for this award, I really appreciate it.
I’ll check the blogs you recommend.
And second, I’m a fan of yours, I’m new in here but so far the experience has been great.

What? Me?Nominated? for a award? Thankyou soooo much! First I’d like to thank….lol. I haven’t received/been nominated for award yet, so this is very special to me! Thankyou sooo much Lavinia! Does this nomination entail me to do anything, like getting a award does? I’m gonna link this award to your blog post in my sidebar, so when people click it they will be at your fab blog, plus i like to toot my own horn! lol, thanks again Lavinia! Hugs from me and kirby!

You are so incredibly awesome. Your blog is so interesting and you are just adorable so it is easy to see why you are nominated. And probably will be again. Congrats to you. Just for the record, I would have “never” known English was your second language if you didn’t say so. Again, amazing. Thank you for the nomination. I am honored. I am just happy to meet cool people like you so everything else is a bonus 🙂 Cheers.